some five star tales

I think you have to approach a collection like this with the expectation that you'll (hopefully) love a handful of the stories within it and feel indifferent about the rest of them. Those few that you love, though, the ones that proceed to live rent free in your head and randomly push their way to the front of your mind at the most inopportune moments weeks and months later, seem so worth it to me. I decided to rate each of the stories in this collection on a five star scale after reading them. I gave a small handful of them five stars (the ones with that push-to-the-front-of-your-mind quality). A few of them initially received four stars but, after realizing I'd been pondering them in moments between classes and before bed, received another scribbled star. My five-star stories are as follows: "The Wind," "Post," "The Beyoglu Municipality Waste Management Orchestra," and "Ten Year Affair." Each is uniquely its own, though I noticed alongside one of my professors that the second half of the collection has a distinct magical realism theme despite being alphabetically ordered by author last name. Strange how things work out coincidentally like that. I love "The Wind" for its attention to generational female trauma, "Post" for its delicate and masterful take on relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic, "Beyoglu..." for using absurdity to showcase both beauty and pain during wartime, and "Ten Year Affair" for showcasing how sometimes women just need to be allowed to be delusional to cope with life. 


Some of my favorite quotes from my five-star stories:

​"And at this moment my mother saw with terrible clarity that everything depended upon her." ("The Wind")

"Her nose would know him anywhere." ("Post")

"Believing too that some door had forever closed between them with her words." ("Post")

"I realized that if I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over again. In my next life, I want this one." ("Post")

"'I'm afraid for my books,' said Mehmet." ("Beyoglu...")

"She thought of him always in both timelines." ("Ten Year Affair")

"She knew her imaginings within imaginings would not translate." ("Ten Year Affair")

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